This man has been CEO of this Corporation since 2010 and given his past track record of financial ineptitude (Forestry Tasmania springs to mind), it is now the turn of water and sewerage to suffer the same fate.

He’s called on councils, regulators and the state government to come up with a plan to avert the looming prices. Isn’t this his job!

He’s paid $140,00 just for this job alone. Add to this the remuneration he receives from all his other board roles (see TT article “All about Miles” by Peter 18.09.12) and the conclusion reached is that this man is a drain on the public purse - one we can’t and shouldn’t afford!

100% increase to the consumer.
How about Miles taking 100% pay-cut.

Posted by Tom Bailey on 07/12/12 at 02:40 PM

Can this be the same Miles Hampton that sat on the board of Forestry Tasmania for the past 5 years before suddenly resigning his position as Chairman of the board Forestry Tasmania?
It appears that this resignation came about, when he learned that there were to be tight restrictions placed on future major taxpayer funded grants, which after all were essential to keep this flatulent logging outfit alive and still able rip the heart out of Tasmania’s State Forests.
Current reports coming in of which we all now know of, were and still are designed to solely benefit the corrupt-reported parent company of Ta Ann Holdings- based in the kindom of Sarawak.

We now learn that this CEO of Tasmania’s Water and Sewerage corporations, is in fact the same Miles Hampton. formerly of Forestry Tasmania, has since his arrival to the position as head of this new corporatized ultimate water authority, has allowed the internal borrowings of this corporatized water supply and sewerage services group to severely impact upon their recent supposed necessary increases in charges?

Yet now all of a sudden we learn that the then considered charges were to be non-viable and we now must be charged a great deal more for the very same product?

What is it with this CEO, who seems determinedly intent to drain the very lifeblood out of the Tasmania people?

If we are to dwell upon each stage of the forbidding corporatization of all this State’s previously local-council funded water supply and sewerage services, there will appear in the minds of most ‘the pyramid effect in the way this CEO has continued to raise the domestic charges for our essential domestic water supplies and sewerage services?’
It may be quite bold of me to suggest that there will be found deep flaws and rather poor management systems observed to be emanating from the head of these Water and Sewerage corporations, whereby nobody among the entire hierarchy seems to be able to function without further poking out their demands for evermore price hikes to support their methods of supplying that very same which we already had some 3-4 years ago but for much much lesser charges?

Admittedly there were upgrades necessary in some of the former council zones in which the relavent council were responsible for that zone’s water quality and supply, yet now it is as though there are no limits to what this whole new corporatized gorgon will attempt to dump upon the State’s citizens.
Another strong concern is to the prospect that those new controlling persons among the head of this ultimate State Water Supply and Sewerage Services Authority, are lacking in sound business acumen and lacking the essential carefully audited financial skill controls as deemed vital, then to the severe lack of direction given to the management personnel to function in the manner beholden upon such an ultimate State Authority.

There is the hint of suggestion arising from the way of the constant price-hiking demands by these corporates that the whole design of the operations within this controlling Water Authority are flawed, and as such, are incumbent upon the CEO to better regulate these irresponsible and worrying outcomes.
Unfortunately it seems the CEO of this corporatized water supply ship is ever constantly kept from the helm of said ship due to the large number of other time-committed State government directorships and private business directorships that have been sought by Mr Miles Hampton?

Posted by William Boeder on 07/12/12 at 04:21 PM

The time has come..Every Tasmanian refuse to pay these parasites..and refuse to pay taxes to the Imbeciles who are driving this country into oblivion on purpose, ....Come on Aussies wake up, time to fight these filthy parasites..

Posted by Richard Brown on 07/12/12 at 06:27 PM

This man as you call him is a ... selfish bastard..

Posted by Richard Brown on 07/12/12 at 06:29 PM

Reaching a watershed?

Posted by TGC on 07/12/12 at 08:26 PM

The concept of corporatising utilities is logically doomed to failure because their business model is geared towards encouraging the user to be more frugal in their consumption of their product.

This is just not logical, because if successful the majority of users reduce their use (whether it be of water or electricity) and the corporation’s profits plummet. In order to maintain profit and dividends to shareholders, the corporation’s automatic response is to increase prices. The consumer again reduces use, and so the spiral continues.

The idiocy is that these organisations actually spend the customers’ money to tell them how to reduce their bills and executives like Miles Hampton are rewarded for justifying this obviously unsustainable business model.

Posted by Rob Walls on 07/12/12 at 08:46 PM

Miles Hampton! S**t, I thought he was Mr Giddings, which explained why the premier looked so happy in the photo and how he was able to secure so many board positions..

Posted by Philip Dickinson on 07/12/12 at 08:58 PM

Let me guess….

Some of the investment will be about replacing things which actually need replacing etc. That’s what the councils used to do - spend only what was actually necessary.

Sadly, the rest will probably end up on things like spending some ridiculous amount to supply reticulated water to a town with 50 residents and things like that.

This is essentially what happened with electricity. Building infrastructure that was beyond what was actually required, to the point that consumers could no longer afford to use it anyway thus making it pointless.

I have nothing against small towns wanting water. But there comes a point where it’s cheaper to subsidise the cost of carting it in during dry periods rather than build an over the top water scheme for a few people.

Just like there’s a lot to be said for off-peak power for heating water etc in the power industry. The most expensive solution isn’t generally the best one.

Posted by Shaun on 07/12/12 at 11:23 PM

looks like riding instructions from the lab-greens who control the appointment of the directors.that have gotta fatten the beast before it is then sold to price gouging foreigners & an other doubling of charges on top when the friendly price regulator is again duped.

what assurances were the municipal councillors given as to their residents future charges when they were duped by the lab-green government & under their favoured mates ministrations into handing over their water & sewerage assets/businesses..

Posted by mike seabrook on 08/12/12 at 06:50 AM

Try this for gratuitous waste! Ben Lomond Water insist (despite widespread protest) on spending at least $7 million on a pipeline carrying water from a holding tank at Mt Direction on the East Tamar across 27 kilometres of hilly terrain to Lilydale!

That water will originate from the other side of Launceston!

A household survey found that 93 percent of Lilydale locals want their water supply from neighbouring Mount Arthur improved instead at a very much lower cost – that is, at a cost which Ben Lomond refused to quantify until their pipeline project became a fait accompli. The corporation then wildly inflated that cost in order rule out the Mount Arthur water option.

Ben Lomond told Lilydale residents that they must accept the pipeline as their first gesture of so-called consultation two and a half years ago. They have held meetings flatly rejecting strong local opinion yet now that contracts have been let and digging has started they claim to be conducting improved “consultation”.

Just 170 residences will be hooked to the pipeline – at a cost of more than $40,000 each! – Yet residents were told at a public meeting, don’t worry, this cost will be spread across Tasmania (with commensurate price hikes for all).

– So, how many more little towns are being forced to use expensive chlorinated, fluoridated water, instead of nearby mountain water with ultra-violet ponding and filtering? Makes it easy to see why water costs will double while the water corporations expand their empires letting gigantic contracts that residents don’t want.

Water was privatized, capitalized and profitized when taken out of the hands of local government - and away from the votes of rate-payers. For starters, that meant that rate-payers had no say over pollution in the catchments (eg. plantation run-off). And no say over chemical treatment and profligate waste!

Posted by Anony Mous on 08/12/12 at 07:04 AM

ANd who are the beneficiaries of the profligate waste. Google ITT, and research its history. Hmmmm.

Perhaps if we had an integrity commision that actually drew breath?

Posted by eagle eye on 08/12/12 at 08:03 AM

You vote for fools and you get a fools outcome. The only options people will take are the fools, because they want to believe the lies rather than the reality and this is the outcome of that irresponsible approach.

This is the 21st century, why do people rely upon those whose minds are firmly locked in 19th century failed approaches. Cling to the past and the future will bury you in it’s failures.

Posted by A.K. on 08/12/12 at 08:22 AM

We in Tasmania firmly believe in transferring public money into private hands, and where this is not possible in setting up unnecessary organisations so that the favoured few can be paid obscene salaries. Using public money of course.

But don’t get me started on the Legislative Council.

Posted by Trevor K on 08/12/12 at 05:17 PM

Watch the crooked creek Ben Lomond Water merge into the murky stream of the new statewide water authority and then watch it get sold off to the glistening river of some private water authority.

You heard it first on Tasmanian Times! Just like “The Times” (London) heading of “West sees glittering prize in Vast Iraqi Oilfields” after the invasion of Iraq, there are massive water companies already in our community (you can see their vehicles on the road daily) ready and waiting to get their grubby hands on our “pristine” waters.

Posted by John Alford on 08/12/12 at 05:29 PM

A major dilemma for many Tasmanians will be which utility must be the first to be cut-off- power or water.

Posted by TGC on 08/12/12 at 09:01 PM

#15 it’s not as though there’s a choice. If you decide to go solar and dispense with the services of Aurora Energy you don’t get electricity bills. Put in tanks and tell Southern Water you don’t want their water and they’ll still bill you for running their so called “infrastructure” past your house.

Metro run their buses past my house. In fact they stop at the door. I don’t use them, but I don’t have to buy bus tickets..

In essence the water corporations’ business plan appears to be evolving into a scheme only slightly removed from legalised bush-ranging. Get your hands on a utility essential to life. Charge people for it whether they use it or not. Gold-plate the infrastructure, and price it any way you like to justify this. And if Tony Foster has his way, when people can’t pay, take their houses. When the government is short of cash they should have no trouble selling of this “asset” to a private concern.

Posted by Rob Walls on 09/12/12 at 08:06 AM

#10. Same thing’s happened down here in the Huon Valley. Our tomfool council, succumbing to yet another Lib/Lab election-time bribe around 2007, threw together a “Huon Valley Water Scheme” estimated at many more millions than the inducement the big parties offered. And then the cost of the scheme — eventually implemented by Southern Water — almost doubled (to more than $30 million). Where Southern Water got all the extra money to pay for it no one seems ready to say. Presumably it was borrowed — which means lots of interest payments to be paid through rates.

Also, for years to come, ratepayers will be forking out millions of dollars to pay for the electricity and maintenance necessary to pump water from above Judbury across the Huon to the Cygnet/Cradoc area, when there was a ready supply practically in the town’s backyard (Grey Mountain), from which pristine water could gravity fall all the way into every home and business.

The valley’s long-time mayor, Robert Armstrong, who led the secret drafting of this scheme in Geoff Cockerill’s final years as HVC GM, makes no secret of the fact that he is very proud of this, yet another, boneheaded “development” for the valley.

The only way Tasmania can have any hope for a more progressive and sustainable future is for voters at every election — state and local government — to clean out every sitting member/councillor and re-start the political process from scratch. It might mean a bit of chaos to start with — the parliament and council chambers being filled with independents — but we couldn’t possibly end up with anything as bad as we have now.